Keep In Touch

Audio Premiere: MK Asante x Maya Angelou & J Dilla - "My Victory"

Acclaimed author MK Asante premieres his brand new single “My Victory” from the forthcoming BUCK: ORIGINAL BOOK SOUNDTRACK featuring words from Maya Angelou and sounds from J Dilla‘s track of the same name. “My Victory” follows the May release of the official video for “Godz N The Hood” featuring Ras Kass, Bishop Lamont and Talib Kweli. Asante pulls the production from the Rebirth of Detroit Instrumentals and combines it with exclusive audio from meetings with Dr. Angelou following their collaborative work on the film The Black Candle, which made its television debut in 2011. With his transition to the microphone, Asante’s gripping commentary and vivid descriptions of life on the block burst forth from the pages of his memoir to dance atop the driving track like water against a smoking skillet as he speaks to the plight of his brethren with lines like, Man, they can’t see us winning. Far too blind. Beams of light still peeking through faulty blinds. Asante plays the fiery town crier to Dr. Angelou’s resounding, prophetic voice as she delivers an emotionally charged performance that floods out of the ether to engulf the track like a rolling tide. Her words arrive with a power that will raise the hairs on your neck as they punctuate the urgency of MK Asante’s treatise and reinforce her presence, even as the world continues to mourn her recent passing:

Young women. Young men of color.
We add our voices to the voices of your ancestors
Who speak to you over ancient seas
And across impossible mountaintops
Come up from the gloom of national neglect
You have already been paid for.
Come out of the shadow of irrational prejudices
You owe no racial debt to history.
The blood of our bodies and the prayers of our soul
have bought for you a future without shame,
bright beyond the telling of it.
You are the best we have.
You are all we have.
You are what we have become.
– Maya Angelou

MK Asante delivers his latest single with a personal note about the importance of the production and how it all came to be:

Dr. Angelou embodied Victory … and so did J Dilla. Dilla is also a new ancestor and this track is a tribute to both of them. But there is also great weight in the song … it grows in depth as the beat rolls on … and Dr. Angelou’s weighty call to action kinda sneaks up on you. Dr. Angelou (Auntie Maya) was my mentor. She helped me with my memoir BUCK. When I thought about honoring her legacy … I thought about something she said: “people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” “My Victory” is about creating a feeling and sharing it with the world, like Dilla and Angelou did.

Check the track below to listen to “My Victory” featuring Maya Angelou and J Dilla. Download the track via SoundCloud. Purchase your copy of Asante’s memoir BUCK via Amazon and iTunes. Stay tuned for more from BUCK: ORIGINAL BOOK SOUNDTRACK and MK Asante.